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On October 27, the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty, the Southwest Organizing Project, and a number of food stamp recipients filed suit to halt work requirements for food stamp recipients which are set to go into effect in November. The Associated Press reports the changes would require "some childless adults [to] work in order to receive food stamps." Other recipients would have to "search for a job or participate in community service or job training."

Really...MRC recently produced a video (linked at the following sentence) at the Congressional Black Caucus conference asking attendees if the same nutritional standards imposed on kids via Michelle Obama should be applied to food stams. What ensues is three minutes and fifty nine seconds of liberal intellectual bankruptcy at it's finest.The money quote for me was at 1:27: "I don't think it's the government's job to dictate what you can and cannot buy." ...Seriously.It's an amazing quote from someone who would presumably follow those wanting to overturn Obamacare to the gates of hell...Hat tip to Biden for that one...The video...

Something peculiar is happening to our nation's food assistance program. The recently renamed food stamp program - now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP - is supposed to respond to difficult economic conditions by providing financial assistance to purchase food to poor Americans. As bad times hit and more people need assistance, SNAP caseloads should go up. And as the economy strengthens, the number of SNAP recipients should decline - at least in theory.For most of the history of the program, that is what happened. As the accompanying chart shows, from 1969 until 2003, SNAP has been very...

CNSNews.com) - The number of Americans on food stamps has topped 46,000,000 for 35 straight months, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA). From September 2011 through July 2014, the latest month for which data is available, the number of persons participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has exceeded 46 million. As of July 2014, there were 46,486,434 beneficiaries of the SNAP program. Excerpt - - - Graphs at the source

Enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars keep pouring into a scandalous Obama administration program that aims to provide low-income minorities—already getting free groceries from the government—with healthier foods. It’s part of the First Lady’s effort to eradicate “food deserts,” area’s with limited access to affordable and nutritious foods, and so far the administration has spent a fortune with no end in sight to the cash flow. Announced just a few weeks ago, the latest allocation is for $31.5 million to “create projects that increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables among low-income consumers” that already get food stamps from American taxpayers....

A division of the Agriculture Department is making $31.5 million in funding available to help people on food stamps obtain healthier foods. The department’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is making the funding available to help those enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which offers nutrition assistance to millions of low-income Americans. "Too many struggling families do not have adequate access to nutritious food," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday as he announced the new funding. "Helping families purchase more fresh produce is clearly good for families' health, helps contribute to lower health costs for the country,...

It's about a 4 per cent increase between the benefit increase and the increased expense deduction. Heard about this increase and searched 'Bing News' and Google News' and found nothing. Finally found this Pa. state welfare site that mentions it.

Shop now if you depend on food stamps or cash assistance from New York. Neither will work starting early Sunday morning. The system will go down at midnight and isn't expected to come back online until noon Sunday. It's being shut down so the state can switch to a new company to run the program. It will take at least 12 hours to do the switch. Medicaid benefits are on the same card, but they will not be affected by the change. Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data. Toni Maxwell,...

For every job created in the state of Illinois, two people sign-up for food stamps—not exactly an encouraging statistic. The state ranked ‘dead last’ across America for job growth in 2014, according to the Illinois Policy.Not only is the economically-challenged state failing to create positions in the private sector, it actually lost nearly 6,000 jobs between January and July of this year. Since the financial crisis of 2008, Illinois has almost 300,000 fewer workers:  The pace at which Illinois has been creating jobs is simply not good enough for Illinois families, and policy mistakes, such as the historic 2011 tax hikes,...

In 2000, Michigan had 580,000 people on food stamps. By 2011, that number had grown to 1.9 million people as nearly 1 in 5 Michigan residents were on the Food Assistance Program. But after 11 consecutive years of increases, Michigan has seen the number of people on food stamps decrease the past two years, according to the state’s annual reports. After reaching the high-water mark of 1,928,478 in 2011, the number of people on food stamps dropped to 1,828,384 in 2012 and then to 1,775,646 in 2013. Don Grimes, an economist for the University of Michigan, said the recent decrease...

A public defender will handle a former New Orleans mayor’s appeal of his conviction on bribery and money laundering charges. […] According to a questionnaire filed with the court, (Ray) Nagin has just $23.65 in the bank. He said he, his wife and daughter live each month off of $360 in food stamps and about $500 in gifts and donations. …

When Republicans want to support their position that Americans have become dependent on welfare, they frequently point to the number of workers on food stamps. In 2012, Senator Rand Paul called the program “out of control.” In 2011, Senator Jeff Sessions told the Daily Caller, “There is no doubt, if this country isn’t willing to look under the hood of the food stamp program as we try to bring our surging debt under control, we are obviously not serious about what we are doing.”Paul, Sessions and their Republican colleagues are right that the number of food stamp beneficiaries grew considerably...

BERNE - A 21st-century Albany County initiative that combines farmers markets with online shopping is receiving extra funds to continue growth. State Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Paul Tonko announced Wednesday that FarmieMarket Online LLC, based in the town of Berne, is receiving $24,490 in federal funding. The SNAP’s monthly electronic benefit transfers (EBT) dollars, which 95,000 individuals and their families in the Capital Region currently receive, cannot be used in many online food stores, but only at authorized retail food stores. The new program will allow EBT users to order fresh food online with the benefit...

Published August 22, 2014 FoxNews.com Americans receiving food stamps were caught selling and bartering their benefits online for art, housing and cash, according to a new federal report that investigates fraud in the nation’s largest nutrition support program. Complicating the situation is the fact states around the country are having trouble tracking and prosecuting the crimes because their enforcement budgets have been slashed despite the rapidly-rising number of food stamp recipients, according to the Government Accountability Office report. Under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, 47 million people have been awarded $76 billion in benefits. State agencies are responsible...

Since October, 155,000 New Mexico residents have joined the state’s Medicaid rolls, pushing total enrollment to more than 630,000, or nearly a third of the state’s population. On top of that, 410,000 New Mexicans are enrolled in Medicare, the federal health care program for the elderly. Together, total enrollment in those two federal programs are more than 1 million, or half of the state’s 2.1 million population. ... “It’s shocking, and when you add that to the outmigration of people and the lack of economic growth, it’s almost an incentive to stay poor,” said retired University of New Mexico economics...

Should the public know how much money Wal-Mart, or that convenience store down the street, takes in through the federal food stamp program? Or does that amount to a retail trade secret? Those are the questions at the heart of a request for public comment announced Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program. Here’s the background: Last year we spent $76 billion tax payer dollars on the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP). That money goes to about 47 million low-income Americans, who use it to buy...

The nation’s food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provided a record $74.6 billion in benefits to needy Americans in Fiscal Year 2012—paying out $2 billion too much, according to the annual quality control report for FY 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. And only in Washington could that $2 billion in overpayments be viewed as a good thing. […] The data show the payment error rate has declined over time, from 5.64% in FY 2007; 5.01% in FY 2008; 4.36% in FY 2009; 3.81% in FY 2010; 3.80% in FY...

Maine’s Republican governor wants all able-bodied recipients of the federal food stamp benefit to complete work or volunteer activities. Gov. Paul LePage announced Wednesday that Maine will no longer seek a federal waiver that allows some able-bodied adults to receive food stamps without working or volunteering. “We must continue to do all that we can to eliminate generational poverty and get people back to work,” LePage said in a statement announcing the change. “We must protect our limited resources for those who are truly in need and who are doing all they can to be self-sufficient.” According to the Maine...

NY Post Columnist: ‘Sense Of Shame Is Gone’ For Entitlement Recipients New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss the increase in food stamp recipients and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s refusal to allow New York City to fingerprint residents who receive nutritional assistance to root out fraud. Goodwin said recipients of food stamps have ballooned while barriers to entry into the program have decreased; as a result, the “the sense of shame” among entitlement recipients is gone. “Shame used to be part of this,” said Goodwin referring to the culture that used to accompany...

Louisiana spent about $1.3 million on food stamps for people who were already dead between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2013, according to a report issued by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor Monday (July 7). In all, state benefits went out to 3,938 deceased people over the four-year period examined by the auditor. The Louisiana auditor only reviewed records concerning single people who had died. The total amount of money spent on food stamps for single people in Louisiana during this time was $1.08 billion.